Sunday, May 31, 2009

Had a great weekend. Saturday worked with the Club's Training Officer and 8 trainees. The Training Officer took them through a series of "shooting while moving" drills where the gun is on a table for the starting position.

After which we went and shot three stages. I ROed most of the students through these stages. I didn't have my gun with me so I wasn't shooting at all.

On the last stage I had to pick up a shooter for "breaking 90". In a "real" squad he would have been DQed (disqualified) but as this is training this is where we work with them to show them how to shoot a stage so that they don't put themselves in a position where they do this (where possible). His "mistake" was that he shot down the left side of the range first, then backed up to shoot the right stage. On the last target he didn't back up far enough.

I enjoyed the training session and the opportunity to do so much ROing - makes me feel more confident to do it on normal squad shoots.

Today I went up to the range to shoot. There were three squads and I joined a squad with my two mentors on it. I like to shoot with them were possible as I know that they will give me some tips on each stage and lots of constructive criticism.

The stages had been reorganised (and made harder) than the stages yesterday (Saturday shooters rarely put up no-shoots, the guys doing the stages on Sunday love them!).

The first stage had a wooden flap that had to be lifted to shoot the last four targets. I've not used one of these before-hand so I got some tips on how to approach it - luckily, as when i tried it first (with no gun) I "swept" myself! Anyway, I shot the stage fine without sweeping myself.

The second stage was another challenging one - it was "strong hand only" with four paper targets and three poppers. The starting position was facing uprange, loaded and holstered with hands on head. It's been a long time since I've done a start facing uprange and I was concerned that I'ld either forget to shoot "strong hand only" and/or miss all the poppers. (Normally I'm okay with poppers but last week had shaken my confidence - we had a stage with four poppers and it took me two mags to knock them off). Anyway, I took my time in the starting box to get my thoughts together and then shot the stage well ... all the poppers went down but I did totally miss one of the paper targets (scores on the other three were 2As, 2As, 1A & 1C).

Stage three was a little stage. The starting box was directly in front of a window with three targets (and a no-shoot), then there was a target to the left & right of the window which were not visible from the box. I had no problems on this stage, but I think I got one C and one D - the rest were As.

Stage four was an interesting one, three rooms in a row. In the first room there were two targets, one partially obscured by two no-shoots (you could move far left to get a clear shot on both targets). The centre room had three targets again, two of which were partially covered with a no-shoot AND the window into the room was blocked by two no-shoots so you either had to go over the no-shoots or under, (basically gun had to be put through the window either way). I went under (otherwise I would have had to shoot on my tiptoes). Then the third room had two targets that you had to shoot around the end of the room with a fault line stopping you stepping out to the right. One of the left-handed revolver shooters ended up on their butt as they over balanced (gun remainded facing downrange the whole time though) - it was one of those situations where you wish you had a camera running. Anyway I did good on the stage again - no no-shoots and no misses and again mainly As.

The last stage was a 24 round stage. The first two targets could be engaged from the starting box (with half a step) but they were through a portal (one portal for each target). I got a bit of assistance on how to shoot these without running up to the portal and I was pleased that I gave it a go and managed to get 2As on each of the targets. I shot the rest of the stage as I had planned and again only got 1C - the rest were As, EXCEPT the last target they scored (the third I had shot - it was a low target, probably 15m from the starting box, partially covered with a no-shoot) I missed the target completely (not happy! ... I should have shot it closer as I had to go over there anyway for targets 4 & 5). Still if you don't try these things you don't learn.

So all-in-all I was happy how I shot the stages today. Just hope I shoot as well at the next trophy shoot.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

As I've now lost my job (finish on Friday), I've started to look for a new one and I'm surprised at the lack of spelling and grammar checking on job adverts, for example:

The really sad thing about this job advert is that it has been submitted by an Agency. One would think that they would, at least, run a spell checker across it before submitting.

No, I'm not going to apply for this position. There are a couple of "Business Analyst" jobs that I will be applying for though.

Another interesting thing I have noticed is that there are 8495 jobs currently advertised in Perth (on www.seek.com.au - listed within the last month), of which 556 state "immediate start". I've also noticed that other jobs which don't actually state "immediate start" are for commencement in the short term. It seems that there is an expectation that there are a number of people sitting around waiting for a job. These jobs seem to be across all industries and qualification/experience levels.

Monday, May 18, 2009

As Kylie enjoyed herself so much on Saturday we decided to visit an indoor shooting range today to give her a bit more range time.

There were various packages on offer - I thought that Kylie should try the "Daily Double" which is a .22 and a 9mm. Ross and I went for "Trev's Special", which was a 9mm, a .45acp, .357 revolver and a .44 magnum revolver. The 9mm and the .45acp were originally both Glocks, but at my request they substituted in a Tanfoglio for the 9mm.

Kylie LOVED it ... and Ross and I had lots of fun - although I let him shoot off the last two of my .44 magnum rounds as I wasn't enjoying it that much and I knew he enjoyed it more!

Here's the photos ...

Kylie with a 9mm Glock:

Kylie trying out the .357:

(She didn't really enjoy this one that much - but she did shoot off two rounds).

Kylie with her targets:(She had that smile on her face for hours afterwards!)

Saturday, May 16, 2009

I'm currently in Adelaide staying with a friend and we decided to go and visit an IPSC club today.

I had, at one stage, thought about bringing my gun across but there was a hold-up with my IPSC membership so in the end it didn't happen. However, during that process I had been in contact with the Southern Vales Practical Shooting League and decided to take them up on their invitation to visit.

We arrived just before noon and found our way to the club house. After standing around looking lost for a bit I found someone to introduce myself too and a lovely lady, Jean, took us under her wing. We (my friend, her husband and I) were shown the way to the ranges.

They were still setting up ranges when we got there. So we walked around, chatted to various people and had a look over the stages. I was quite amazed at how shallow their ranges were. They also seemed narrower than what I am used to. Lots of the ranges had fixed structures, two of which were used for the shoot today.

Once the shooting started we hooked up with a group of three and watched them shoot through the stages (and helped with patching and brass retrieval).

Once they had finished shooting the five stages they offered us a shoot. We set up 7 steel targets and I had a turn of the Glock 34 (and hit the targets). My friend Kylie shot next and then her husband.

Here's a photo of Ross with the Glock.

This was Kylie's first time holding/shooting a gun - she did well and had fun.

I was then offered a shoot of a K100. I quite liked shooting this gun, although I did shoot a bit high with it.

We then moved to the rifle range where we played with two 22 rifles. Here's some photos of me with both (btw it had been raining earlier in the day).

Kylie had a turn with one of these and said that she enjoyed it more than the pistol.

We then spent a couple of hours sitting in the clubhouse chatting to various members.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

When I was on the range on Saturday with the trainees I felt something hit me on the head. There were people shooting on the range behind us and I'm guessing it was either a bit of a bullet ricocheting off the quarry walls or a piece of rock. It did no damage but did remind me that there are dangers with the sport and you need to be careful to minimise them where possible.

In today's news we have another story about a ricochet - unfortunately much more serious ....

Sunday, May 3, 2009

I mentioned to my girls that we were going to a Vegetarian Restaurant today. My 5y.o. asked what a vegetarian was. I explained that they were people do didn't eat meat. My 7.y.o. goes "Oh, you mean a herbivore"!.

We did a course out at John Forrest National Park. We were rather unsure of where we were supposed to go and what we were supposed to do. However, the registration area was well signposted and there were lots of people there to explain the process and advise.

Based on the advice received we decided to do the "VE - Very Easy" course. Apparently this level of course is designed for 7y.o. to navigate on their own. The course follows tracks or other obvious features the whole way and each turn is marked with a checkpoint.

The VE course was approximately 2.3km and it was a "walk in the park" (apart from a 5y.o. who complained ALL the time - my youngest doesn't like walking - ever!). Still she is very good at navigating and loved using the E-tag at the checkpoints.

This was more of a challenge. Although you can use tracks to get to each checkpoint there are options for cross-country work as well. We did a mixture of the tracks and cross-country, particularly as most of the cross-country work was through areas of Parrot Bush (not fun!). There were also less checkpoints, and the ones that were there were further apart.

We found that this was a good challenge for all of us. My youngest still complained the whole way though ... so I'm trying to decide if it is worth dragging her along with us each time or if we should find an alternative activity for her on Sunday mornings. I like the idea of the family doing an activity together and she is quite a strong willed child so learning to compromise isn't the worst thing she could learn. However, I don't want to turn her off orienteering forever.

Unfortunately my camera has just eaten my photos of the events. Here's some from my husband's camera of the first event: